


Fraud

by dragoninatrenchcoat



Series: Out of the Nick of Time [10]
Category: Forever (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 07:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragoninatrenchcoat/pseuds/dragoninatrenchcoat
Summary: What if Liz Chamberlain kept her eyes on the road?In Episode 17, Social Engineering, Liz threatened to send an email exposing the fraudulent documents that made up Henry's official background. She's promptly run over by a car in a murder attempt by the true killer. What would have happened if Liz kept her eyes open and noticed that the walk sign had betrayed her?Disclaimer: this is not guaranteed to be a reveal. Like all OotNoT stories, I recommend rewatching the correlating episode just before reading the story, but that’s certainly not required.
Relationships: Jo Martinez/Henry Morgan, Mike Hanson & Jo Martinez
Series: Out of the Nick of Time [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880338
Comments: 13
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

_“We’ve got Liz on the live feed. She’s on Houston, headed west.”_

Finally, a location. Jo picked up the radio. “We’re less than three blocks away,” she said, pressing her foot on the gas as she docked the speaker again. Her phone went off, the email tone more like a whisper beneath the sirens.

They were less than three blocks away because, in following the subway line, Jo had accidentally been heading toward Abe’s Antiques. What was Liz doing around there? Was Henry alright, or was that just a coincidence?

#

When she heard the sirens, Liz Chamberlain broke into a run, tucking her phone into her pocket. But for some reason, Warlock wasn’t on her side anymore; he’d already tried to kill her by changing the walk light. And there was no way she could outrun a cop car without his help.

She tried anyway, ducking into alleys, breaking line of sight--and actually almost made it into a subway tunnel--until a green light sent a street of cars directly across her path, and the officer that’d been doggedly chasing her pulled over, threw the door open, and drew a weapon.

“NYPD! On the ground, now!”

Liz complied, but realized she recognized the cop who came forward to cuff her: Jo Martinez, the recipient of her most recent email. She felt a spark of hope.

Dr. Morgan had refused to kill her, so Liz had outed his fake history to his partner. When that came to light, he’d get discredited--and she would have a new chance to get out of this.

Detective Martinez read Liz her rights and pushed her into the backseat. The lights and sirens shut off, the car pulled out again into the street, and the surge of traffic magically cleared to normal.

Warlock had actually tried to kill her. He’d helped the police catch her. Why? What had changed?

Could it be true that he had killed Eric, and was trying to get her to take the fall? She couldn’t think that of him; he just wasn’t that kind of guy. He’d helped her escape before. It didn’t make any sense.

“Not the talkative type, huh?” said Detective Hanson, from the passenger seat.

One problem at a time. First, don’t go to jail. If she could expose Dr. Morgan, they’d have to start the whole case over. The sooner the better.

Liz swallowed. “Dr. Morgan isn’t who he says he is.”

“Oh, yeah?” Detective Martinez said dryly. Maybe she thought Liz was just grasping at straws. But when the Faceless made threats, they followed through. Liz straightened in her seat.

“I looked him up. Dr. Morgan is a fake. His medical degree, his work history, even his birth certificate. All bogus. They all just magically appeared in the system six years ago. It’s all in the email.”

“What email?” Hanson asked, a disbelieving tone of voice.

“The one Detective Martinez received.”

Martinez scoffed outright. “Pick a better target, Ms. Chamberlain. Nothing about Henry is fake.”

“Oh, so you really believe he studied medicine in _Guam?”_

Martinez cast a glance to her in the rearview mirror. It was a fleeting look, but Liz saw a seed of doubt.

She smiled. “I just think it’s worth looking into.”

#

Jo brought Liz to the station and booked her, then retreated to her desk to get everything in line for questioning. She and Mike had tried to get more out of the girl about her weird fixation on Henry, but Liz had only repeated the thing about the email before exercising her right to remain silent.

It was ridiculous, of course. Henry, a fraud? He was the most genuine person she knew...

...when he actually said anything. He _was_ private. But he was private about his personal life, his money, _normal things,_ nothing like this.

Mike came over to her desk. “The computer kids are packing up, now we’ve caught Liz.”

“Yeah,” she said absently.

“Hey...” He lowered his voice. “Did you, actually? Get an email?”

She hadn’t wanted to check, but really, there was no reason not to. The sooner they looked at it, the sooner they would find out that Liz actually had no proof--or maybe even that there was no email, and she’d just been trying to put them on-edge for no reason.

And on the slightest chance that the accusations were right... well, better to know that, right?

There it was, at the top of her screen: an email with the subject line _THE REAL HENRY MORGAN._

She opened it.

“Wait!” Mike exclaimed, making her jump, but then he groaned as the email loaded.

Jo watched him, eyebrows raised. “What?”

“That thing could’ve had a virus. Maybe it still does. Too late now, anyway.”

A familiar image drew her eyes back to the computer: the logo for the Faceless, announcing itself at the top of the email.

_The Henry Morgan you know has only existed for six years._

_You’ve been working together for a while now. Do you really know anything about him? How could you, when his entire identity is a lie?_

_Every official document--birth, work history, certification, his medical degree--has been forged. Here is the proof._

_Dr. Henry Morgan is a FRAUD._

Below that was a series of screenshots: documents with correlating database entries, and paragraphs of text explaining each entry. They came in doubles: Henry’s certification on today’s date, and an archive of the same database in 2007, notably lacking the same document.

Mike scoffed. “This is all fake. Pictures and docs and stuff can be Photoshopped.”

“Yeah, but... why? Why use the Faceless to make a claim like this? What can Liz stand to gain?”

“Well... it was you and Henry that invalidated Creff’s arrest. When you shaved a corpse, remember?”

“So if she can invalidate Henry’s credentials, everything he’s helped us with wouldn’t stand up in court. Including the fact that the killer had to be in Eric’s apartment.”

“She’d get off.” He shrugged. “Easy fix, then. Delete the email. It’s fake anyway.”

Jo hesitated. She wished she agreed with him. She wished she knew enough about Henry to be able to dismiss the idea out of hand. But the problem was that she really didn’t.

It was just such a weirdly specific claim to make. And as far as she knew, when they exposed secrets, the Faceless did actually tend to be right. Was Liz just using that reputation to provoke an investigation?

“Wait, what’s that?” asked a voice. Irene, one of the cybercrimes detectives, who leaned over Jo’s shoulder and openly inspected the email.

She and Mike both stiffened. “It’s nothing,” she started-

“A joke email,” said Mike. “Let’s get back to work.”

Irene took the mouse without asking Jo, stepping close enough to force her to shift out of the way. “No,” she said, reading the email. “No, this isn’t a joke. This is a Faceless threat. Keith,” she called over her shoulder, and the other cybercrimes kid jogged over. There were now way too many people at Jo’s desk.

Jo said, “We’ve got this handled,” which was almost a complete lie.

Keith scoffed, reading over Irene’s shoulder. “No you don’t. This is a genuine Faceless threat. It’s a good thing I haven’t packed up my computer yet; come on, Irene, let’s find the sender.”

As he turned away, though, Irene frowned in thought. “Wait, this is your M.E., isn’t it? Henry Morgan. He’s on this case.”

Mike nodded, eyebrows raised. “Yeah, hence them trying to make shit up and get the case dismissed. They’re trying to free Liz.”

Jo saw a calculative look in her eyes, while Keith typed away on his computer behind her. One slender finger rested on her lip, and she nodded.

“That’s a risk we have to take,” she said.

“What?” Jo realized the exclamation had come from her. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, are you saying you want to free a killer that we have in custody?”

“Think about it, Detective.” She fixed those sharp blue eyes directly onto Jo. “If this is all true, then you don’t know who Dr. Morgan is at all. What if he’s working with the Faceless, and now they’re turning on him? What if his work on this case has...” she hesitated, blinking as if struck by a new thought, but carried forward anyway. “What if he’s covered up for some other killer?”

Mike laughed, loudly. “Morgan, working with the Faceless? If you knew a single thing about him you’d know how ridiculous that is. The man doesn’t even own a computer. Or a cell phone.”

“Besides,” said Jo, “Henry’s been working with us for almost a year. He’s brilliant and dedicated, and good at his job. There’s absolutely zero chance that he took the job with us just to be an eventual undercover asset for _one_ murder.”

“Maybe it wasn’t just one murder,” said Irene, placidly. “How many times has his insight resulted in an explicit change of suspect?”

Mike stood from his lean against Jo’s desk. Up until then, he’d seemed to find the exchange more entertaining than anything else, but now there was clear anger in his features. “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”

“If this is true-”

“You tech kids have been here for a _day._ Dr. Morgan’s been working with this department--with _us,”_ he added, motioning between himself and Jo, “for almost a year. You don’t know a thing about him.”

“No, and maybe that’s why I’m the best person to look into this.” Before either of them could protest, Irene held up both hands and continued, “It won’t take long. I have access to all the databases this email talks about. I can look into this stuff from my own terminal, which isn’t directly wired to the precinct network like yours. The Faceless won’t be able to redirect me to fake fronts like they would from your terminal. I’ll be able to find out really quickly whether or not anything in this email holds water, and then we can stop talking about it.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “Fine. Just do it quick.”

Irene nodded, turned away, and grabbed her own laptop from a bag. She earned an odd look from Keith, but nothing more.

“Seriously,” Mike said under his breath. “What’s up with her?”

Jo nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Unfortunately, Mike knew her pretty well.

“What is it?” he asked quietly.

Jo shook her head. “It’s nothing. Like she said, we’ll find out it isn’t true, and we can stop talking about it.”

He crouched down next to her. “Are you really considering-?”

“No. Not really.” It felt like a lie as she said it, which put a sour taste in her mouth. “Just... better to know for sure, you know?”

Mike’s eyebrows went up, and he tilted his head, conceding the point. But he looked worried as he returned to his own desk.

#

Henry paced the length of the antique store. He’d done nothing else since Liz had left the establishment; he kept trodding on the torn scraps of the death certificate, knowing in some corner of his mind that he ought to pick up and burn the pieces. But his feet just kept following his thoughts in circles.

“Henry, you’re stressing me out,” Abe complained from his seat behind the desk. “Can you take a seat?”

“Jo hasn’t called,” he said, rather than answer.

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“She was emailed with proof of my dishonesty, and she hasn’t yet called to corroborate. Why hasn’t she called?”

Abe shrugged. “Maybe Liz didn’t send the email.”

Henry finally stopped, then, fixing his son with an exhausted look. “I’ve seen that desperation before, the resolution in her eyes. The righteous anger of the young. I have every certainty that she did send the email.”

“Maybe Jo hasn’t read it yet.”

Henry groaned at the idea, and did finally sink into one of the seats by the chess board.

In the following silence, Abe asked the question that’d been staring into Henry’s soul since the moment Liz had walked out of the shop, phone in hand.

“What are you going to do?”

He stared out at the street, his head propped-up by one hand. What was he going to do? Or, to put it more directly, why hadn’t he already begun to pack?

Bad things happened when others learned the truth about him. Good people died. Everyone seemed to drastically mishandle discovering his secret, with one exception--two, counting Abraham, who’d been raised to it. He didn’t like those odds, and wasn’t keen to roll them again.

So, he should run. It’d done him well before. It was a tried-and-true method, and it had lasted him two centuries of service.

Pack, run, start over again, someplace new. Without Abe, possibly; this secret wouldn’t implicate him, and he may not choose to move on. Without Jo, who Henry had come to regard so well, the partnership they’d developed together...

Would it even be possible to stay? If he were convicted of fraud, how long could he be imprisoned? Long enough for someone to notice that he didn’t age? What would happen once they really dug for his history? Would they find his marriage license with Abigail, Abe’s adoption papers, where he’d foolishly signed his own name? Would they think anything of it if they did?

He felt he needed to face the consequences. He’d made his bed, after all. But he’d made it for good reason. Jo wouldn’t understand; all she would know is that he’d betrayed her. That he’d lied to her. And he had certainly done that. Why did he _want_ to stay and see this through, knowing that only darkness awaited him at the end of the path?

Because leaving meant leaving Jo. It meant leaving Abe.

What would he be without them?

“Dad,” Abe said, gently.

Henry tore himself out of his thoughts, regarding his son, who sat watching him with an expression of perfect understanding.

“What are you going to do?”

He swallowed. “I have to run. It’s the only option.”

“Is it the only option?”

Henry sighed, shutting his eyes. “I can’t tell her, Abe-”

“If you call her up right now and tell her the truth, she’ll-”

“She’ll think I’m insane, and that I had some contact with Liz that would have warned me about the email. She’ll think I’m making fun of her.” Henry stood. “No, I have to run. I’d known it since the moment I tore up the death certificate, I just didn’t want to acknowledge it.”

As he passed on his way to the apartment, Abe stopped him with an outstretched hand. “Hey. You did the right thing.”

Henry let out a long, slow breath. “Are you sure about that, Abe?”

“Absolutely.”

After a long moment, Henry continued into the apartment to locate his suitcase.

#

“This is... this is something else,” said Irene, from behind Jo. “Detective, come here.”

Jo turned to see Irene waving her over without glancing away from her screen. Jo got up--and so did Mike and Keith, whose attention she’d also managed to earn. They came up behind Irene, surrounding her borrowed desk, but the lines of text on her computer screen weren't easily deciphered.

“What are we looking at?” Mike asked.

Keith answered before Irene could. “That’s an archive of New York’s birth registry from 2006.”

Irene scrolled through the results. “No sign of a Henry Morgan.”

Jo’s chest tightened. “Wait, wasn’t he born in England?”

“Two years later,” Irene continued, loading what looked like the exact same page with a few keystrokes, “there he is. Henry Morgan, born 1979 in the city of New York.”

A stunned silence surrounded the desk. Only Irene seemed immune to it, continuing to tap away, pulling up new sites, scans of documents.

“He did actually attend the University of Guam--and that was not easy to find out--“

“Not easy?” Mike scoffed. "You've been working on this for, like, a minute."

“--but he only enrolled in a few courses. I can’t find a degree of any kind, let alone a medical doctorate. The only legitimate paperwork Henry Morgan has on file with the NYPD is his medical examiner’s license, but I can bet you that would be revoked once he’s reported as a fraudulent medical professional.”

“Whoa, wait,” said Jo, who’d grown steadily hotter in the neck with each new word. “Are you--are you seriously saying--?”

“Henry Morgan isn’t a doctor.” Irene turned around as she said it, gesturing to the computer. “He isn’t _anything._ Everything the Faceless said about him is right. Before six years ago, he doesn’t exist at all.”

Jo opened her mouth, but there was no air in her lungs. She stood suspended, watching the innocently bureaucratic lines of some database on Irene’s laptop, with Henry in her mind’s eye.

Kind, thoughtful, brilliantly smart, sharp-witted, quick to action, and sometimes furiously optimistic. He cared so much, he saw so much joy in the world around him. He was one of the best people Jo knew.

Could that all be a lie?

“The Faceless,” said Mike, suddenly. “They’re hackers, they could have made all this up.”

Irene shook her head. “Getting into this archive is tough, even for them. It’s not as modular and user-friendly as getting into live websites, or feeds. They would have had to edit decades of information--and for what, to get a single M.E. fired? The Faceless have easier ways to do that, if it was their goal. Look, I’m sorry, but...” She shrugged. “This is true. It just lined up with their interests to point it out.”

Keith whistled. “A fraud working directly for the NYPD. Now _that’s_ ballsy.”

No. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be true.

Henry had his secrets, sure, but he wasn’t a criminal. He... he _had_ jumped really quickly to fleeing the country, though, that time when his stalker had framed him for murder. Like it was something he’d already had on his mind...

Fleeing. Jo stiffened. She needed to find him quickly, in case he tried it again. Her brain slotted Henry--just for a second--into the category of ‘suspect’, and she knew she had to get to him as soon as possible.

“Mike,” she said. “Come on.”

“What? Where? We still have to question Liz-“

“Abe’s. Now. Before he has a chance to run.”

“You really think Henry would-?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to give him the chance. Let’s go.”

He jumped into action, needing only to grab his jacket and badge before following Jo out to her car.


	2. Chapter 2

Henry was in the basement when he heard the knock at the door.

Damn it. He hadn’t been fast enough. He’d lingered too long thinking; now there was no escape, not from the basement, where the only door lead up into the shop. Unless Abe were able to lure them away to the back--but Jo would see clear through such a strategy, knowing that Henry liked to hide in the basement when nervous. In fact, it might be the first place she’d check.

Mindful of that, he quickly put away the parcel of books he’d been gathering, shut his suitcase and tried to hide it behind one of the tables. The trapdoor opened as he stood up; he rushed to his desk and sat behind it, picked up whatever had already been laying on the surface, and pretended to study it.

A piece of paper, with an enumerated list. He saw no other detail.

Henry looked up and made himself smile at Jo’s entrance, wildly uncertain as to its appearance of veracity. He set down the paper and came to his feet.

“Jo. Has Liz Chamberlain been located?”

“Yeah,” Jo answered. She didn’t follow him deeper into the lab, but stood by the entrance, as though to block his passage. She crossed her arms and fixed him with an uncertain look. An appraising look, like she were searching for clues at a crime scene, or studying a suspect.

She had most definitely received the email.

Henry had no idea what to say. No white lie could cover the enormity of what she’d discovered--not in a way that would have any chance of returning life to normal. There were lies he could tell that would cover up  _ why _ he’d done it, but they would be far to his detriment. Still preferable to the truth? Perhaps.

Hanson descended and stood on the landing, looming behind her. He regarded Henry with that same wariness, but he seemed ultimately less suspicious of him. Merely confused.

“Wonderful news,” Henry said, belatedly. “Let us go question her.”

He stepped forward, but so did Jo. Hers was such a purposeful step, directly into his path, that he stopped on the moment.

“Henry,” she said, fixing him with those sharp eyes. “Did you forge your own birth records?”

A direct question. Henry found he had no option whatsoever; only one answer allowed itself to be said.

“Yes.” He lingered with a short sigh at the end of the word.

This was the moment: here, in the short stretch of suspended quiet, was the space where he was supposed to explain it away with some unforeseen yet benign happenstance. Henry had long found himself a purveyor of lies, necessarily something of an expert in them; you first say the absolute truth, and in this very moment of confusion that the truth inevitably left in its wake, you elaborate with an absolute lie. The target then latches onto the explanation with relief, and life continues on.

But Henry had no lie for this, no explanation great enough to encompass this transgression. The moment passed in silence.

Jo shook her head, blinking.  _ “Why?” _

Mike stepped out beside her, watching him as though he’d grown a second head.

Henry shrugged, and again found himself telling the truth. “Because my true birth records would not have been acceptable. Moreover, I’m not certain it’s possible to obtain a copy.”

At that, Jo stalked forward to meet him. She stood just before him, a fraction too close, watching his eyes with an ill-concealed anger. “Tell me the truth. Right now.”

Mike followed more slowly, keeping over an arm’s length away but watching them silently. Watching Henry with absolute bewilderment. Circling, ready to act if he needed to.

_ Say something, _ Henry urged at himself.  _ If ever there was a moment to capitalize on your natural charisma, that moment is now. Everything hangs in the balance. Say something! _

He opened his mouth and said, “I  _ am _ a doctor. That much is true. I am  _ not _ a criminal-” he winced, knowing this technically to be untrue, in the face of his fraudulence. “Not outside of this, in any case. Much of what I’ve told you _ is _ completely true, about me, about Abigail, about _ who I am.” _

“Much,” Jo echoed. “Not all.”

Henry swallowed, but his mouth was dry as his throat. “No,” he heard himself say. “Not all.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, tried to wrench himself back into one piece. He was merely reacting; but if he wanted to make it out of this, he needed to  _ act. _

“This a suitcase?” Hanson had meandered over to the other side of the lab and located the place where Henry had hastily stashed it. “You running?”

“No, that is an as-yet unpacked suitcase from a previous...”

He trailed off when he saw Jo’s expression. She didn’t believe this new lie, not for a moment; and neither did Hanson, whose eyebrows betrayed his dry disdain.

Henry took a step back and spread his hands, non-threateningly. “Alright. Allow me to tell you the truth.”

_ “Please,” _ Jo demanded, not wavering from her spot between him and the exit.

“Liz visited me today.”

That startled both of them. They shared a glance, but didn’t otherwise interrupt Henry.

“She demanded an official death certificate from the OCME. She wanted to disappear. I do believe she isn’t guilty of the crime of killing Eric; at the very least, she made a convincingly impassioned plea to that effect, and I would warrant some validity to exploring her claims.”

Jo said sharply, “Henry. The point.”

He cleared his throat. “She had discovered my... missing history, and blackmailed me for the creation of said certificate. I refused. And thus she sent the email, and thus you read it.”

Hanson scoffed. “That sounds more like an ‘I’m sorry you found out’ than an ‘I’m sorry I did it’.”

“That... is... why I was packing. I was trying to run.” Henry said it heavily, guilt weighing down the words. “I dragged my feet, not wishing to leave my life here, but...” He shook his head. “I still don’t know what I was thinking. I still don’t know what I  _ am _ thinking.”

Jo said, “Henry.”

He met her eyes.

“Why did you do it?”

Another direct question. Jo was excellent in her field.

He wanted--he realized in that moment--he _ wanted _ to tell her the truth. Wished for it, somewhere buried inside him. He wished he could explain everything to her, and that she would smile, and everything would be righted, and he could be his full and complete self with her.

It wasn’t possible.

Henry took a breath, straightened, and said, “I can’t tell you.”

Her jaw actually dropped, just for a moment, her face slack with shock. “Henry--I’m going to have to arrest you for fraud. For forgery. For impersonating a city official. You know that, don’t you?”

“Do what you must, Detective. I won’t resist. The fact is that I did forge my birth certificate, and part of my work history, and the documents surrounding my schooling. I did come to New York six years ago and found a life built upon lies. Of that crime I am guilty.”

Mike stepped forward this time, exploding with frustration. “But why, Doc? I don’t care how bad it is, just tell us. We worked with you--hell, we trusted you. You owe us the truth.”

“Nothing that I say will convince you not to arrest me. You both are respectable officers of the law, and you have a duty to uphold that law. You must... you  _ must _ believe me that it does not reflect my regard for you when I say that this is a secret that cannot be told.”

Jo shook her head. “Henry, if you’re in some kind of trouble-”

“No, nothing of the sort. I am not on the run from any person or group of people in particular, I’m not trying to cover up for some crime, I’ve not been extorted nor blackmailed into this fraud; it was entirely my own idea and volition.”

“You just... what, _ decided _ to start from scratch one day?”

Henry afforded himself a slight smile. “Actually, in a manner of speaking, I suppose that isn’t far from the truth.” He let out a breath. “I’m sorry, Jo. This isn’t about trust, it-” he cut himself off, because ultimately, that wasn’t true. He couldn’t trust her reaction to his condition. He swallowed. “I have no choice. This is one truth that I may never share. You must believe me.”

She stared, and when he saw hurt in her eyes, he felt it reflected tenfold in his heart.

He hated what he was. This was precisely why he’d dedicated himself to finding a solution; this was why immortality was, first and foremost, a curse. This was why he’d recoiled from rejoining society for so long after Abigail’s disappearance. He caused pain merely by proximity.

Abe asked, “Are you sure?”

His voice was quiet, but he drew the attention of all in the room; he stood on the stair landing, having climbed down without drawing notice. He held Henry’s eyes with that selfsame determination of the young that Henry had cited not long ago.

“Are you sure this is a truth you can never share?”

Henry set his jaw. “Even if I did tell them, Abraham, what purpose would it serve? I must still either run or be arrested. Going back to the way things were is simply no longer an option.”

“What is it?” Jo asked Abe. “If you know what it is, why can’t you tell us?”

To that, Abe only shrugged. “It isn’t my secret to tell.” Then he met Henry’s eyes, and they shared a long look. Of understanding, of love, of trust... potentially, of goodbye.

“Thank you, Abe,” Henry said softly.

No, going back to the way things were was not an option. Only arrest, or flee. Neither of which allowed him to do the one thing he’d come to New York to do: spend time with his son.

Henry held out his wrists before him. “I believe you have some rights to read me, Detective.”

She shook her head in frustration, even as she stepped forward and pulled out her handcuffs. “Henry, this is insane. I can’t believe you.”

“And yet it makes a small amount of sense, doesn’t it?” he said, going for a small smile.

Jo frowned as she cuffed him. “No. And I don’t appreciate you treating this like it’s some joke.”

“It is far from that, Jo, I promise you.”

With the handcuffs firmly in place, Jo led him toward the stairs, where Abe stepped aside. At the last moment, however, Hanson stopped her with a touch on her shoulder and a “Wait, hold on.”

He turned to Henry. He lowered his voice, ducking his head toward him, the closest he had ever come to Henry on purpose.

“Wait a second, Doc. Think this through. Really think this through. Jo and I have the best chance of helping you out if you can tell us what’s really going on. We leave here, we go out through that door, there’s no coming back. You’ll be at the precinct, you’ll be in jail, you’ll be making tours of stuffy federal courtrooms for who-knows-how-long before you even get a sentence. But here, right now, it’s just us. Tell us, Henry. Now. Before it’s too late.”

It was tempting. Henry’s plan was to die as soon as possible and make his escape; but who’s to say when he might have the opportunity, if ever? When he’d extended his wrists, he’d only been thinking of Jo, and not himself. Not the years spent in a jail cell, refusing to age, forced medical exams where he’d give blood containing smallpox antibodies. Or, in the worst case, getting secretly transferred to a top-secret location.

If he couldn’t stay, he needed to run. If Jo and Mike could help him run... but they wouldn’t. They couldn’t, they were sworn officers. They...

They were explicitly asking, weren’t they? That’s why Hanson had stopped them here, now, before going up the stairs. If they could be convinced of Henry’s honesty, of the absolute necessity of the situation, then just perhaps...

But it was such a risk to take.

But it was a risk not to take it.

Abe nodded, silently, gently. 

Jo looked into Henry’s gaze and softened at something she saw there. “Henry,” she said quietly, eyebrows coming together in pain and frustration. “What is it?”

“You won’t believe me,” he whispered, glancing between them.

“Try us,” said Hanson.

“I don’t think you understand,” Henry warned, with an eyebrow raised. “You will not believe me. The answer you’re looking for... the only answer I have for you literally borders on the praeternatural.”

“The what?”

“The... supernatural.” Even saying that much felt too close. Chills swept up and down Henry’s skin.

Jo shut her eyes, exasperated. “Henry, this isn’t funny. This is your career. Your entire life.”

“I am all too aware of that, Jo. I have some proof, but it is not... pretty. At the very least, we can move on now and leave the subject there as evidence that mine is far from a simple answer.”

“Henry, if you’re just going to make fun of this-”

“I want to see it,” said Hanson, crossing his arms.

Jo turned to him, eyebrows raised. “What?”

He half-shrugged, still looking at Henry. “The proof. You said you got it, I want to see it. If it turns out magic’s real, that’ll be a hell of a thing to take home to the boys.”

Henry shook his head. “Anything I tell you, anything I show you, must not leave this room. Under any circumstances. That is far and beyond the most important reason that I hesitate so strongly to tell you: this is a secret that must not be shared with anyone, ever, for any reason, on pain of- of imprisonment, for example.” He raised his bound hands. “If I tell you, it is because I care for you both, I value the bonds we’ve developed, and I don’t want to leave you thinking that I had merely been using you for some nefarious purpose all along. And, I admit, if I tell you, it is also to beg for your help.”

Hanson paused only a moment, then nodded. “You prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that magic’s real, and I swear absolute secrecy.”

Henry grimaced. “It isn’t quite that-”

“You know what I mean. Jo?”

They both turned to her. She stood looking between them with her eyebrows raised, sheer disbelief in the gentle slope of her mouth. “You can’t be serious. Either one of you.”

“Think about it,” said Mike. “The Doc does his thing, trying to prove magic. Situation A, we’re convinced, we stay here and talk about it. Situation B, we’re not convinced, we take him to the station and charge  _ our friend _ Dr. Henry Morgan with felony forgery.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment. “I don’t like this any more than you do, but this--whatever this  _ is-- _ is not the answer. I mean, are you really that desperate for some other explanation that you’ll literally turn to  _ magic?” _

“He says he has proof, Jo. Proof. At the very least, let’s hear the guy out.”

Jo spent a moment simply staring at him. Then at Henry, who stood with held breath, uncertain whether he’d made the right call.

“I can’t believe this is happening. I actually can’t believe  _ this _ is happening.” She gestured to Henry, then put her hands on her forehead and paced away.

“That’s a yes,” said Hanson. “Now, what’ve you got?”

Henry blinked, staring. He hadn’t expected all of _ that _ to happen--in short, he hadn’t expected Mike Hanson to come down so heavily on his side. Compared to Jo, he hardly knew Hanson. He knew him better than he knew anyone else in the precinct, but that wasn’t saying much.

Proof. He had apparently, accidentally, offered Hanson proof. But now it was too late to go back.

He was going to tell them the truth.

At the very thought, Henry stiffened with alarm. Anything remotely resembling the truth was a fiercely hoarded secret, something never to be uttered aloud. He would be breaking his own law, his own vow, and for whom? Jo he felt close to, but they had known each other less than a year. Mike he knew less well, although he trusted him completely. Undoubtedly a good man.

He glanced at Abe again, who offered silent comfort, but no answers. 

“Well?” asked Hanson, leaning back on the stair rail.

Henry swallowed. “I need to fetch something from my cabinet. If you’ll allow me?” He motioned toward his chemical cupboard necessarily with both hands. He got a nod from Mike, and a grudging one from Jo, and retreated to the cabinet.

He needed speed, not prettiness or comfort. He grabbed the sodium cyanide and an empty beaker, opened the sealed jar, and poured in a hefty amount of white crystals, more than enough for his purposes. He sealed the jar again and put it away--all in silence--and brought the beaker over to the sink to fill the remainder with water. Stir until dissolved. Instant deadly poison.

He placed the beaker of deceptively clear liquid on a table and said, “After I drink this, I will disappear. I’ll come to in the middle of the East River.”

He met eyes with Abe, who nodded and said, “I’ll make a bag,” before heading up the stairs.

“Wait, what do you mean, disappear?” Mike asked.

“I’ll vanish. Keep one hand on me, if you like, so you can be certain it isn’t some trick of the light or secret trapdoor. Unfortunately, everything I’m wearing will simply cease its existence, so if you don’t want to lose your handcuffs, Jo, I recommend removing them.” At her look, he added, “But I fully understand if you prefer to leave them where they are. For the record, I don’t actually believe that this _ is _ magic--that is, I believe it must be scientific, somehow, like the rest of the natural world. It must be ultimately explainable. I just... I haven’t found that explanation yet.” He steeled himself. “In the meantime, this demonstration should suffice as proof to you both that there is more here than can be understood by the American legal system.”

Jo stood watching him fiercely over crossed arms. “Henry, what the hell are you doing?”

“Hopefully, I’m not making one of the gravest mistakes of my life.”

He drank the entire solution before he had a chance to rethink it. The liquid tasted simply of a slightly-gritty water, but he knew far better than that. He used the next precious moments to remove his pocket watch and place it purposely on the desk beside the empty beaker.

To the detectives, he told the truth.

“That was cyanide. I am about to die.”

Jo went pale. “What? Henry, no!” She rushed toward him and held his arms fiercely in her hands, searching his face. He began to feel weak, his chest constricting. Acute cyanide poisoning. He habitually began to tally the symptoms even as they were happening.

“Fear not, Jo,” he said to them both, struggling to speak up. Shortness of breath. “This is precisely the answer you’re looking for. This is the reason that I must lie in order to survive. Jo- Detective Hanson, please put down your telephone.”

“Like hell!” He’d leapt to his feet, phone to his ear. “I can’t believe I encouraged you to-“

“After I die, my body will disappear.” He staggered as his strength bled from him, breathing hard, a slight spinning sensation: lightheadedness, vertigo, from lack of oxygen to the brain. Not much longer. “That will be your proof. Collect Abe and- and come to the-”

His legs gave out; he fell into Jo’s arms, pulling her to the floor, as pain speared through his chest and down his arm. Cardiac arrest.

Jo’s terrified face pained him to see. “Do you have an antidote? What do I do? Tell me, Henry!”

“Trust me, Jo.” He forced the words out, each breath a strain on his lungs, the electric fire in his chest. “Trust me.”

His body clenched in a seizure, and the last thing he saw was the fear in her eyes.

#

“No!” Jo clutched Henry where he lay ungainly across her knees, as she helplessly watched the life leak from his clenched expression. “No, Henry, Henry, look at me-”

There was a strange glint, like an errant flash of light, and she was holding nothing.

She breathed hard, staring at her own knees, her hands, the cold floor of the basement lab. Henry was... he was... gone.

Mike said, “What the hell.”

She looked up at him, then back at the floor, where no trace of Henry remained. Feeling numb, she reached into the space where he’d just been. There was nothing.

“Alright,” Abe’s voice called down the stairs. He climbed down halfway, a small duffel in one hand. “I’m- wait, is he already gone?”

Jo watched him, waiting for her mind to function again. Henry had died, and then...

...Vanished. 

Abe sighed. “How much did he  _ actually  _ explain?”

Mike lowered his phone. “He said he’d disappear and come back in the East River.”

No. No way. This wasn’t possible.

Abe gestured. “Come on, then. I’ll drive.”

Jo shared a glance with Mike, but he was as shocked as she was. When she stood up, she couldn’t help searching around the room with her eyes, as though there was the slightest chance Henry had just moved a few feet to the side, rather than...

“Come on,” Abe repeated. “It’s cold out there, and it’s the middle of the day. At this rate, someone else could find him long before we get there. Bring the pocket watch.” He pointed to the table with the beaker, then headed back up the stairs.

Mike grabbed the pocket watch. “Let’s go.”

She grabbed his arm. “No. Wait. You can’t be serious. You don’t believe this.”

“I want to, don’t you? The only other option we have is that Henry’s... dead.” He gave an exhausted shrug. “And if it turns out Abe’s trying to get one over on us... I mean, between the two of us, we can probably take him.”

She snorted, which was more than the poorly-timed joke deserved. “Let’s go,” she found herself saying, and followed Mike up the stairs.

Damn it. What the hell was happening? Henry had actually admitted--openly admitted--to being a fraud, and now...

Could this all somehow be some huge, complicated lie? How could it be?

Jo followed Abe to his car, but stopped before she got there. “No. I’m driving.”

Abe looked surprised, pausing where he’d started to toss the duffel into the trunk. “What?”

She glanced out and started across the street, toward her own vehicle. “I’m driving. We’re taking my car. I’m right over here.”

She didn’t give Abe a chance to argue. The choice of car wasn’t actually likely to matter, but she needed to do  _ something _ , take some kind of control over the situation. And in the slim chance that Abe and Henry _ were _ trying to pull something, then it’d be harder with her at the wheel.

Jo unlocked the car and slid into the driver’s seat, remembering the last time she’d been the one driving when someone else tried to pull something. What Detective Dunn had pulled that time had literally been a gun, and while her being in control of the car had been ultimately beneficial, it’d been Henry that had saved her life.

_ “I’m right with you, Jo,” _ his voice had shouted confidently into her ear, urging her to strike the car headlong into a concrete wall.  _ “Trust me.” _ The same words that he’d just now uttered before convulsing.

She’d trusted him then. She’d trusted him with her life, and he’d saved it. 

That couldn’t all be based on lies.

The slam of a car door brought her back to the moment: Mike, sitting passenger. She glanced back in time to see Abe slide into the backseat, that small duffel on his lap, clicking the seatbelt into place.

“Where to?” she asked him.

“East River Park. South side.”

She glanced at Mike when he said that, and they shared an uncertain look before she started the car and clicked on the siren.


End file.
